1/6 I've been testing a few things on ChatGPT to see how it might assist research. There appear to be some fascinating confabulations. I asked it to provide three of the most prominent academic articles on the Chinese party-state 2016-2019. Look carefully at the results...🧐 2/6 As far as I can tell, none of these articles by Jude Blanchette, @mcgregorrichard, or @RobertLawrKuhn actually exist (I'm happy to be corrected). Yet they do seem plausible. The final example is a book last published in 2011 rather than an article.
I tried again...

1/n Who owns London? In my latest article, I explore the relationship between authoritarianism & capitalism by investigating Chinese + Hong Kong-linked high-value property transactions in London 2010-20. Let’s take a look… link.springer.com/article/10.105… 2/n Of the various findings, the most intriguing is a pattern that appears in many of the 35 transactions. On the Chinese buyer side, we often find links to the party-state (sometimes to overseas influence organs directly).

1/20 The news about "Chinese agent" Christine Lee broke today. I've been following her case for some time & in fact she featured in my PhD thesis on UK-China hidden relations. She's appeared in stories by @thetimes & @GuidoFawkes before. Yet there's still a lot more to this case.

https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1481630342733832197

2/20 Frankly, if you have experience of the Chinese party-state, it would be hard to miss her enmeshment with it. The contrast between her presence in the UK and China is eye-opening, however, and raises some questions for a few well-placed British citizens and institutions.

1/9 There's a widening gulf between business concerns & traditional state concerns on China in tech. It emerged today that Huawei & Alibaba are sponsoring Europe's Gaia-X cloud computing event. But a far smaller story from France this morning better illustrates this phenomenon🇫🇷 2/9 @Intel_Online reported that Chinese semiconductor group FATRI (西人马) is now making solid headway in France thanks to connections in Airbus and the French Parliament. intelligenceonline.com/corporate-inte…

Today I have submitted my PhD thesis: "Fool’s Gold?: Sino-British Elites and the ‘Golden Era’ of Relations"😅. The study brings an investigative research approach to three case studies and the interconnections between them. Each case study produced genuinely revelatory findings. The Freedom of Information requests, targeted dual language background checks, & inter-case connections appear to demonstrate coordinated party-state activity in the UK, including targeting of high profile political figures, influence over APPGs, & commercial entity compromise.